Whenever summer begins, I get strong memories of the drive-in. It never fails. The weather shifts and instantly I’m sitting in the backseat of a car with my friends, our bare feet over the front seat, a paper grocery sac filled with candy and junk food, frosty sodas and beers in a cooler, and some movie we didn’t care about on the screen.

Mostly I remember the summer night air, laughing, making ourselves sick on sugar, and talking. They’re great memories.

Summer, therefore, never fails to put me in the mood for hokey, cheesy science fiction movies. The cheesier and hokier, the better. Husband Unit and I watch them so you don’t have to… however, I hope some of you share my love of enjoyable bad movies.

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ASSASSIN

1986, a made for TV movie, starring Robert Conrad. A retired agent from an Intelligence Agency is contacted by the Agency in order to stop an ultra-secret robot who is killing some government officials.

This movie was on the same disc as THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER. Its feel ala The Six Million Dollar Man caught our attention, so we watched.

Was it great? No, but we had fun watching it thinking of bionic people. The plot really lags for a bit before the big finale, but overall it was good-bad. Be on the look out for the creepy shoulder touch. What? Husband Unit is still laughing. You’ll have to watch.

I give this a ONE BEER rating. One is enough to have fun watching the ASSASSIN.

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THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER

A meteor crashes into Oregon’s Crater Lake and unearths a dinosaur egg. The heat from the meteor causes the egg to hatch, and the emerging dinosaur takes to snacking on the locals. 1977.

Dinosaurs! Meteors! in Oregon! I couldn’t resist, especially since Crater Lake isn’t so far from where I live [less than 2 hours which is like next door in the west].

There is only one dinosaur, but we see it often and it eats people. Yay! My favorite type of movie.

It wasn’t filmed at Crater Lake, however. Not even in Oregon. And there was a couple who ended up in Oregon on their way to Las Vegas from LA… that’s a bit of a geography issue.

There were awesome scenes that switched between night and day. There were scenes that didn’t need to be there. One minute the sheriff is wearing sunglasses, the next he isn’t. Awesome! Just what one wants to see in a cheesy dinosaur movie.

The best… a couple rents a boat [there are no boats on Crater Lake] and zooms off to enjoy the moonlight on the lake. A) It was definitely mid afternoon when they shot the scene. B) They comment on seeing all the stars under the moonlight. If there was a full moon, not many stars would be visible. But since this is the same couple that ended up in Oregon on their way to Las Vegas from LA, it’s to be expected.

Dinosaurs eating people bump this to a HALF BEER movie. It was uber fun. You can even watch it for free on YouTube.

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The Day Time Ended

1979. 1st, the description promised dinosaurs. Were those two things supposed to be dinosaurs? And only 2? They didn’t even eat anybody. I’d have liked the movie a lot better with more dinos.

2nd, I can see that’s what the description had to say because there was nothing else describable in known words about the plot except there were aliens, horses, flying robot enemies [which were actually pretty cool], green lighting effects, fog, and these creatures. One of whom knocked on the door and the stupid people opened it. lol Fantabulous.

I loved the way whenever anything horrific happened that the actors just stood around staring. The beginning, middle, and end really didn’t connect and had nothing to do with each other or the dinosaurs. And what was with the ballerina-like little green alien?

You want to watch it now, right?

The character I identified with most was the poor horse they sacrificed to the dinos that weren’t really dinos… I really don’t know what they were.

It wasn’t as fun as The Crater Lake Monster. Definitely not as fun as Assassin, but OK with beer.

Three beers would make this a lot more fun, especially since I felt like I had done drugs by the end, because I was thinking ??? And, honestly, more beer wouldn’t hurt.

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Have you seen any fun bad movies lately?

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In the mood for more science fiction treats? I list my top best bad movies, beer is optional, over at Untethered Realms this week. What? So good, a beer isn’t needed to have fun watching? Yes, it’s true.

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POLAR OPPOSITES: Super Villain Academy Book 2

The supers are balanced. Academies have altered their curriculum to teach both sides of the super power spectrum. All’s well in the super world. Right?

When Mystic kidnaps Oceanus, Jeff learns it isn’t all right. Turning to the newly balanced supers for assistance, he panics to find they’ve done nothing to rescue Oceanus. When no ransom request follows, he worries Mystic’s plan never included returning his girlfriend. Frustrated, he’s forced to work with the only super willing to help. Oceanus’ ex-villain, ex-boyfriend, Set.

Mystic isn’t the only one hiding something. Nothing about Jeff is balanced. Temper flares result in scorched clothing or flying furniture, and his charm has become an indiscriminating people-magnet.

Jeff is convinced, or maybe just hopeful, that his lack of control is directly related to Oceanus being gone. But will he and Set find her before Jeff loses control completely and will they find her alive?

About Kai

When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers and short stories for the younger ones, Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website, www.kaistrand.com.

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Our Beautiful Child

“The Boathouse collects misfits. Strange solitary creatures that yearn for contact with the outside world, but not too much. They sit, glass in hand, either staring at the table in front of them, or at some distant point on the horizon.” … so says the narrator of Our Beautiful Child. And he’s been around long enough to know.
People end up in this town almost by accident. Ella is running away from her nightmares, Sally is running away from the memories of previous boyfriends and Rona is running away from university. Each of them seek sanctuary in the 18th century pub, The Boathouse; but in fact, that’s where their troubles begin.
Ella finds love, a moment too late; Rona discovers a beautiful ability which needs refining before she gets hurt; and Sally meets the captivating Murray, who threatens to ruin everything.
Three women. Three stories. One pub.

BROKEN BRANCH FALLS

Gabe is an average fifteen-year-old goblin. He’s in the marching band, breezes through calculus, and gets picked on daily by the other kids at school, especially the ogres. But Gabe wants to break out of his nerdy stereotype and try other things. He has his eye on the new ogress at school. Though it’s against all beastly rules, there’s just something about her.

Gabe starts a fad of mingling with other species, forcing the High Council to step in and ruin things by threatening to destroy the school and split up Broken Branch Falls. With help from other outcast friends, Gabe sets out on a quest to save his town. They’ll show ’em what different friends can do together!

Tara Tyler has had a hand at everything from waitressing to rocket engineering. After living up and down the Eastern US, she now writes and teaches math in Ohio with her three active boys and Coach Husband. Currently, she has two series, The Cooper Chronicles (techno-thriller detective capers) and Beast World (MG fantasy) She’s an adventure writer who believes every good story should have action, a moral, and a few laughs!

I liked ‘Mars Attacks’ and hubs and I kept saying ‘Ack! Ack!’ after watching and discussing green jello brains. Also, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ and ‘shrubbery’. Unfortunate that most but not all drive-ins are in the past now. We still have one, at least, in the Lower Mainland.

So many cool new releases!
Crap, that was funny! You need to review cheesy films every week. Makes me want to watch and review some bad ones now. Or make fun of them ala MST3K.
Missed Vegas from LA and wound up in Oregon? That’s one messed up GPS…

Love your rating system! I was talking to my newest college age child about Sharknado getting a sequel. He informed me that it has its largest following among drug users who like to watch the movie while tripping. Now that’s a bad movie when you have to be in a completely altered state of mind to enjoy!

LOL. It would take a lot more beer than that for me to watch those movies. But I do sometimes wish there were still drive-ins to go to. We may have one around here that’s still operational. It was just fun when we were kids to go out and park with a bunch of strangers and watch a movie in the car. Bygone era.

It’s cool that Crater Lake is near where you live Mary. It probably made it eerie. The Crater Lake Monster probably deserves 3 stars. Sharknado is the last hokey, cheesy science fiction movie I’ve seen but I love ’em.

Oh I do love a good cheesy movie. And ya know the summer is the best time to watch them. I never realized why, but I bet your ideas work for me too. Hanging with friends, talking with a movie running…good times.

Hi Mary – what a great list of films, books et al – the books I’ve bought some, the films I think I’ll leave you and hubby unit to watch!!

But I thought Kai’s ending was going to be ‘when the stories dried up …’ til the next darkness fell or similar …

Hope the book signing went along happily and successfully … one of my early blogging friends lives in Bend, and I wrote a post for her as a few of us did … she and her hubby have a wood/fencing business of some sort .. she was up all hours of the night so they could monitor phones and do what they did!! Graveyard watch she called it ..

Happy summer – those lovely hazy days .. the lovely hazy days are here .. but boy do they go quickly .. have fun – cheers Hilary

I loved going to a drive-in as a kid too. I’m still waiting for our local drive-in to play something suitable for my kid so we can take him. Love your movie ratings! Unfortunately I haven’t had time to watch any bad movies lately, but I’m in the mood for it now. Congrats to all the authors! 🙂

That was very funny Mary! More reviews!
Right now I have a bunch of bad movie titles banging around in my head.
We have kids and they were born within 6 years. They could really make a mess in our vehicle while watching a couple of movies.

I have always wanted to get the full “drive-in” experience though we no longer have any where I live. I often think about those times, especially when my mother was young. Times were quite different back; I’m sure. There was probably nothing better than a cheesy movie and loads of snacks and sugar!
I haven’t seen any bad/good movies recently but we did watch the remake of The Evil Dead Saturday night which reminded me of the original. And the original one was definitely one of those “so bad it just has to be good” movies.